


Annoyance

by SarahWritesThings



Series: "Extreme Risk" [2]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: B'Elanna is struggling, Canon Compliant, Drabble, Dysfunctional Relationship, F/M, Fighting, Pre-Extreme Risk, References to Depression, don't we all?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-09 20:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahWritesThings/pseuds/SarahWritesThings
Summary: After a hard day, B'Elanna lashes out.





	Annoyance

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact, I had originally written 1000 words of similar theme, actually flipped Tom being the center of the story, but then I realized what theme I was going for and scrapped the whole thing to redo it with B'Elanna. I like it a lot more this way.

It had been a long, slow day. Despite everything she had done, each moment seemed longer than the last, and B’Elanna felt like she was on autopilot, going through the motions as she had done a thousand times before.

The end of her shift had come and gone, and yet B’Elanna found she was still in Engineering, though it had long since gotten to the point where she had to find tasks to keep her occupied, and yet she didn’t leave.

And now it was nearly 2300 hours, and B’Elanna was at her upper workstation, idly checking sensor readings, waiting for something to be just a little bit off. From behind her, she heard the Main Engineering doors open, and instinctively knew that Tom must have come looking her. Sure enough, she heard his deep timbre quietly question one of the Gamma Shift crew members, and heard his footsteps begin to make their way towards the little elevator.

She looked up to see him stepping onto the upper level, watching her carefully.

“Hey.”

“Hello.”

He came closer, perching himself on the little steps next to her.

“You still working?”

“Yeah…”

“Busy day?”

“Something like that….” She heard her voice trailing off.

Tom nodded slowly, obviously confused and conflicted. Gently, he continued, “you should really get some rest, can’t you ask the Gamma crew to take over for you?”

“I want to finish this, Tom.”

She didn’t mean to snap at him. She didn’t know why she snapped at him. But the words came out of her mouth and she froze, unable to correct them.

“Can _I_ help you?”

“No.”

Stillness hung in the air between then, weighing down their hearts and driving them further apart in the process.

It had been like this for months now. He tried, he really tried, and all the while B’Elanna did her best to try and failed spectacularly. It was awful and painful and yet she couldn’t do anything to stop it.

“What’s going on?”

She felt rage boiling up inside of her. “I’m fine, Tom! I just have a lot of work to do.”

“Why are you mad at me?”

“I don’t know! Maybe if you weren’t such an annoyance I’d be able to figure it out!”

Tom stared at her. His eyes full of concern and sadness that made B’Elanna’s blood run cold.

His voice was quiet, “okay….I’ll leave you alone then.”

She didn’t respond, she couldn’t find the strength to say anything at all.

So she let him leave.

And everything felt so much worse when he did.


End file.
